Taman Indrahana Toastmasters Club

Dear Indrahanians, It was the first time this term that our club had a joint-meeting with another club, WIM Toastmasters Club (TMC). We had quite a gathering of 'sibling' clubs together, sort of like a union of Toastmasters brothers & sisters. The first thing I'd like to say is that WIM TMC must have many quality members. They had 7 members present vs our 12. Yet all the night's rewards went to WIM - Best Table Topic Speaker, Best Speaker & Best Evaluator. Kudos to WIM TMC. You see, this is the great thing about having joint meetings - we learn how other clubs work & how other members excel. The best TT speaker spoke philosophically, yet was full of humour. The best speaker was a new member, yet conveyed a strong message in his speech with passion. The best evaluator gave very insightful & practical comments to help the speaker improve his speech. From here we can all learn what it takes to be the "best" of the best:-) Well on our side, we also

Dear Indrahanians, The word of the day on 12 Jan 2010 was 'elated' which means feeling happy. What an appropriate word to kickstart the first club meeting of the new year. All of our members and guests who came for this 'Guest Night' were indeed elated, judging by the number of times the word was used by many speakers. The Language Evaluator, Victor Ong, had his earful with so much business from the members. Well he besieged us to use the word, and his prayer was answered. By the way, one very good reason for elation that night was that Victor Ong finally became our club member after many visits to our club. Congratulations, Victor, and welcome! We look forward to your sharing & learning with us. Jade gave us another reason to be elated - she donated a cake for our new year celebration and enjoyment. It was great to welcome Jade back into our fold & she gamely took on the role of Timer after a long hiatus with her new baby. Durai provided us with muffins for des

Dear Indrahanians Happy 2010. But let me bring you back to history... Well, 22 Dec 2009 sounds like history because that was our last meeting for last year & it sounds like eons ago. This is another way of saying that I'm actually way behind time with this report of mine, to tell you what happened on the meeting night of 22 Dec. (Sorry, I blissfully flew away to China the following day for my long awaited holiday with my family:-)) I've to admit that organising that night's meeting was my most challenging to-date. I thought I had my agenda & role players down pat, ready & early. Then lo & behold, one by one the role players started to drop out - right to the last minute just before the meeting! Apparently that same night is a very important Chinese festival (winter solstice) & so many had to stay back at home for a very important celebration. Anyway, we members who were present managed to chip in to play replacement roles - that's what Toastmasters t

Dear Indrahanians, Greetings to you. Do you ever wish that you could do with a bit of relaxing after a hard day's work? Sure, you could go drinking or partying or have dinner with friends. Or you could go to a play, or a comedy show - but then you'd have to pay a hefty sum for it. Well, you could just have come to our Toastmasters meeting last Tuesday on 8 Dec & you'd have had a whole night of belly laughs & learning, that would have cost you almost nothing! Do you know, we had so many DTMs (Fong Ming, LeAnn, Dom & Dr Devi) & past Presidents (I'm sorry, I can't even keep count with all my fingers!) on that night - it was unbelieveable. In fact, there were so many high-flying members, they were quite unruly & dominating. The SAA (your truly, who had to stand in for Jenny) had to use the gavel persistently to call the room to order. That's for starters. We had 4 guests, 3 of whom were thanks to Koon Kow. One of them was even game to take part i